Hernando

I often find myself going back to the old classics, specially when I am busy and without enough time to read or when I am stressed and can not focus, just to find this. A fast paced, straight to the point and amazing ideas wisely packed in a short book.
The last 50p were absolutely great, everything was happening as if it were literally jaunting. Also all the crazy stuff with time-bending, elsewhere-elsewhen-NOW-etc were nicely done.
Indeed a very entertaining reading.

I almost gave up about 300p then again about 600p but I finished the book , from cover to cover.
I do not have any problem with expositions in any book (I actually like it ) but I honestly find that Kim Stanley Robinson does a better job on this than Neal Stephenson (taking Seveneves as a starting point) as I think that KSR when describing Space, ships, planets, etc is way more interesting, compelling and clear. I find the expositions on Seveneves almost boring and with too many ramifications that at the end were not even important to the plot.
On the other spectrum when the plot is actually happening and there is an argument Neal does an amazing job. I would say this book could be like 300p shorter.
For the last third that got so much criticism I do not think it is bad but I sympathize with those who say that it could be just another book.

Después de leer Señores del Olimpo, la cual no me pareció gran cosa, decidí continuar leyendo a Negrete por el simple hecho de que me pareció un excelente relator-escritor y que además, es bastante preciso en sus descripciones.

En esta ocasión, creo que el único punto negativo de la obra es que el último trazo del libro, luego de la batalla final , me pareció un poco plano y sin un climax a la altura de todo lo que venía siendo el libro hasta ese punto.

4,4/5 sería la nota.

Después de leer Señores del Olimpo, la cual no me pareció gran cosa, decidí continuar leyendo a Negrete por el simple hecho de que me pareció un excelente relator-escritor y que además, es bastante preciso en sus descripciones.

En esta ocasión, creo que el único punto negativo de la obra es que el último trazo del libro, luego de la batalla final , me pareció un poco plano y sin un climax a la altura de todo lo que venía siendo el libro hasta ese punto.

4,4/5 sería la nota.

Un libro bastante entretenido, pero nada más.

Pienso en mi yo adolescente cuándo leía todo tipo de relatos mitológicos y creo que si hubiese leído este libro en ese entonces, quizás algunas de las situaciones me hubiesen irritado aún más que ahora.

Ejemplo, Ares, Hades y Poseidón tienen los papeles más ridículos que nunca antes haya visto de ellos.
Ares = guerra, pero resulta que es el más estúpido para la guerra según el libro. Hades comportándose cómo una niña adolescente daba bastante pena. Poseidón, con solo dos líneas de diálogo en todo el libro y un retrato bastante ‘meh'.

Pensé que también le darían más importancia a los Titanes, de hecho, me esperaba algo un poco diferente en esto. Quizás, Zeus ciertamente abatido ó Prometeo y Atlas consiguiendo redención, no sé. Pero lastimosamente lo diferente que tuvo el libro, no fue tan satisfactorio.

I would give it a 4.6 rate and I understand why it is still considered a masterpiece.
The book is quite a slog, very so, but is so unique in itself.

Aside, the way Miller found death and looking at this book and see how he wrote the discussion about euthanasia is indeed staggering. Depression is quite a thing.

The following are probably one of the best lines I've ever read in a SF book:

“
We are the centuries.

We are the chin-choppers and the golly-woppers, and soon we shall discuss the amputation of your head.

We are your singing garbage men, Sir and Madam, and we march in cadence behind you, chanting rhymes that some think odd.

Hut two threep foa!
Left!
Left! He-had-a-good-wife-but-he
Left!
Left!
Left!
Right!
Left!

Wir, as they say in the old country, marschieren weiter wenn alles in Scherben fällt.

We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient-impregnated) artifacts.

We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do– Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris,

telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve
and a traveling salesman called Lucifer.

We bury your dead and their reputations.
We bury you. We are the centuries.

Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon's slap, seek manhood, taste a little of godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb:

(Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.)

Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens– and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn't the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH!–an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)

Hear then, the last Canticle of the Brethren of the Order of Leibowitz, as sung by the century that swallowed its name:

V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Kyrie eleison.
V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Christe eleison.
V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Kyrie eleison, eleison imas!
”

First half of the book is pure gold in an epic scale but I somehow did not like when the handwavium Extra Super FTL hyperdrive appeared, it wasn't that bad to compromise the whole book but I was not expecting that at all. Probably it made sense in some way for the plot but It also made the universe looks like a small city and it sort of broke that sense of wonder you got when you reading about the Ring, super strings, etc.

Apart from that, it could be a full 5 star book.

3.4 rounded down to 3.0.

The blurb/synopsis of the book is not 100% accurate, actually I would say not even 70% accurate, or did I read another version of the same book?, another manifold maybe?. So just a heads up and don't be mislead by the blurb.

Update: They finally updated the whole blurb.

This guy Malenfant wakes up from coldsleep to find a more advanced world where all the basic needs are covered (health, food, education, etc.), a sort of utopia (for many) and also a creepy world to live in. There is not purpose for the future to come , instead the people just focus in the present as that is what really matters for them.
From here until around 150p is worldbuilding, and exploration of this 25th century world, then things start going weird and the book changes completely from what the synopsis actually says.

I could see here Baxter forcing himself from giving loads of info dumps until he couldn't anymore, so this book is not as hard SF as some of his other books and will probably appeal to those who wants something a bit different in that sense, but there are still a lot of Hard SF on it, in the last third specially, just not as much as many are used to when reading Baxter.

This is the first installment of a duology , the second book World Engines: Creator to be published next year, so to describe this first book as a whole I would say it was enjoyable and did not feel I wasted my time.

This book can be confusing at times specially because there are like 5 characters you have to keep track of and they often hop into different planets and star systems without much continuity between them (the characters). So is recommended at least to write down the name of each character and where they are at the moment when reading the book.

It can be also engrossing and slow, mainly because of the above or because the big chunks of Hard SF in each chapter/page.

I would not recommend this book to people who don't have that much of patience for engrossing details or want some more of human drama or a light and easy to follow story because that would be difficult to find in here.

It delivered what I was looking for, and I liked it overall.

4,2.

One of the best finales I've ever read.